Mars Rover Navigation Tutorials

[Admin]

These are video and animated gif links that explain navigation and pathplanning through terrain using stereo vision.

To start you off, I recommend watching this somewhat funny Rover Navigation 101 (18mb):
http://www.ewh.ieee.org/conf/ras2005/workshops/PlanetaryRovers/02maimone/mer_rovernav_240.mov

and the others:
http://www.ewh.ieee.org/conf/ras2005/workshops/PlanetaryRovers/02maimone/

It is not too different than what I did with my mapping robot with sharp IR sensors:
http://www.societyofrobots.com/robot_omni_wheel.shtml
http://www.societyofrobots.com/sensors_sharpirrange.shtml

It just uses stereo vision cameras to build a map instead of a scanning rangefinder . . .